CHRIS-VINCENT Writes: God is Totally Impotent

I am seated on a flight from London to Cyprus and even though this flight has so far been without any turbulence, there is lingering unrest in my mind—about the impotency of God.

As Africans, any honest conversation about God is met with anger—devoid of proper intelligent scrutiny—irrespective of how politely or brutal the conversation is structured.

Even the idea that the dealings of a God can be questioned, his existence or otherwise should be subjected to logical inquiry, or that the facile nature of our conception of a God could totally be wrong is not faintly accommodated in our setting.

It’s taboo to subject a God, in whatever form or shape you believe him (perhaps even her) to be to scrutiny.

Apart from the fact that the scriptures which surround this fictional character deliberately prohibit a microscopic examination of the God hypothesis, we’ve been wired through childhood indoctrination to not ask questions or even quietly contemplate the veracity or otherwise of any widely accepted claim in relation to God.

We would rather explain every disconnect between the supposed nature or attributes of God and what happens around us with the lousy postulation—that God works in mysterious ways.

The mystery, however, seems to be mainly found only in the inconsistency or contradictions of God—and nothing else.  

If there is one thing God is good or real at, it is the consistent daily proofs He steadfastly provides about the vivid contradiction between the widely accepted claims of His nature and what He really does.

For instance, it is broadly acknowledged that the true nature of the Abrahamic God is one that is just, kind, and merciful. In every intellectual and honest setting of men and women, we would agree on what’s expected of a character deemed to have these three attributes. And there is no question whatsoever about our understanding of just, kind, and merciful.

Yet, we are engulfed in daily pickles that lack justice, kindness, and mercy—with no one in charge than the same God whose nature or condition, even at the bare minimum, should outpace the depth of human justice, kindness, and mercy.

A father who is an embodiment of justice, kindness and mercy would not watch on for innocent children as young as 8 months or 2 years to die in ways that a word like excruciating is not adequately awful enough to define. Yet, this is all we experience daily around us—think about the recent earthquake along the Turkey-Syria border.

Why would a kind and merciful God watch on for innocent children to die in earthquakes or squirt out diseases that put children through cruelty and unending pain right from birth until they die—especially when He has an unfettered power and option to protect or heal these children?

Without fail, God seems to choose to have children and humanity in general suffer. What does God derive from such chaos and “punishment” of innocent souls?

The faithful sometimes argue that all these must happen (the cruelty and pains children suffer) so that the glory of God would be known. And others argue that God is not the source of these happenings or does not have any interest in intervening.

Whichever of the two reasons you subscribe to, denotes a God who is callous or offensively cruel. If any God will constantly use innocent children as collateral damage in furtherance of his plans, then such a God lacks the attributes mentioned above. Such a God deserves not to be worshipped even by the most foolish amongst us.

In fact, it’s both upsetting and absurd for anyone to argue that God lacks the spirit of intervention when innocent children are at the receiving end of pain. And yet this same God is prayed to daily by His followers to intervene in an avalanche of activities—which they honestly believe He does intervene.

Does God really intervene in anything on earth even if He exists? Of course, the evidence is crystal clear. The daily happenings around us including the cry of many religious persons for His intervention when events are under watch, and His “flagrant” failure to step up in such instances is an indication that God is wholly impotent. He does not intervene in anything.

Before Ghanaian footballer-Christian Atsu was found dead in the recent earthquake in Turkey, masses of Ghanaian religious persons, stretching from the coast to the savannah including my own family, cried and prayed to God to come to the aid of the footballer and keep him alive. God failed to do anything—obviously because He has no potency to act in the manner requested of him.

For many, the evidence is clear that God is wholly impotent—but what’s clearer to me is that He does not exist, and He remains a fabricated construct in the minds of those who are desperate to find solace in a different world somewhere, founded on childhood indoctrination and fables of stupefied bronze age men and women.